8.1/10Pretty funny episode IMHO, looks like I'll be heading down to the DMV to confess my sins tomorrow. The Asians Jehovah's Witnesses were pretty funny along with Alec Baldwin's endless sex stories and the bit at the end poking fun at the Catholic Church. Great to see Nichole make another appearance, even if it was brief. The new intro was rather cool too.

I gotta say I liked this episode! The opening was really cool, too. So much stuff to catch. Kenny's grave at the beginning, Mintberry Crunch at the end. Mr. Hankey hops by, and was that Chickedy-ey flying off the sign? As for the episode, it was so accurate. Who doesn't know somebody who blabs on their phone like Cartman? And Butters is so precious with his confession. Makes me wanna go to the DMV to confess. I also loved Cartman being a total spoiled momma's boy at the end! But how does Cartman not have tabs being kept on him? Look at how many crimes he's committed! Liane must be sleeping with some people to keep him off the charts, huh.

It started off humorous enough, then it just got boring. Santa Claus was funny though.

The ending line would've been funnier if, instead of the news station, the anchor said that the only place left where you can confess your sins and not get molested is the Catholic Church. Get it? It's ironic!

So yeah, 5/10 or whatever.

P.S. The new intro is AWESOME! Honestly, that was the best part of the entire half hour. I love the simplistic style; it's almost like a play on the old intro from the first three and a half (three and two thirds?) seasons.

Last edited by KennyStanWendyFan on Thu Sep 26, 2013 3:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

Butters pretty much carried this episode. Everything he did was hilarious. The whole Cartman thing with Shitter and Alec Baldwin didn't really do anything for me.

If you ask me the whole episode would have worked better if they'd been willing to take a hard stand on the whole NSA issue, either for or against. By just being ambivalent about the whole thing, they created an episode without much conflict, and therefore without much of a point.

Instead they kind of took an "oh well, you don't have to worry if you don't do anything wrong" but what they miss is that it's not about what you're doing today but about what you might need to do tomorrow.

If your government mishandled things so badly that it had to "shut down" and you went out to protest how would you like it if the IRS suddenly started an investigation on you? Funny how they have all the money in the world to fund giant information storage machines but don't have any money to feed clothes and educate children.

This is even worse than the 9/11 episode. More people see 9/11 as being an inside job more than ever, why? Because of sh*t like the NSA.

Maybe Comedy Central runs the show completely. Maybe it'll get better when they go own their own.

As for Cartman's part, well, after a while, I was waiting for Kyle to rip the phone from his hand and smash it on the ground

Yeah I was thinking any minute now he`s going to smash that phone i know how annoying that is especially on public transport.

Good intro the episode started off good, nice to have a bus stop opening scene and seeing Officer Barbrady again, though the episode did get a little slow in the middle the ending was good i love scenes where cartman is crying to his mom.

Kyle: Why? How could you do this? There are people starving in Alabama and you give Cartman a million dollars?

Strictly from the perspective of the humor, I loved this episode from start to finish and would say it was one of my favorites in recent memory in the "delivering laughs" aspect.

The dialogue and delivery of jokes seemed "quicker" than usual as well, which I liked, so that there was more time for more laughs in the half hour time slot.

A couple of critiques for me are in the fact that they really seemed to be drilling home the message of "the NSA is only out to protect the people" or something along those lines (I know this was mentioned by another poster, but whether this message was solely delivered for humourous effect or not I don't know. However, you'd think they'd take the middle-ground stance and skewer both sides since they've found a way to do that with nearly every issue in the past) and in the fact that in delivering so much humour, the plot seemed a little "disjointed" to me. Maybe "disjointed" is the wrong term as that implies it didn't tell a coherent story, but it certainly had a random feel to it from my perspective with all of the cultural references. I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that they're still dusting off the cobwebs so to speak after being away from the creative process for so long. Maybe it could have to do with Bill Hader's increased contribution? Who knows? I actually liked the episode a lot better than that of the past 4 season premieres prior in every way, shape, and form, but feel there was something different about it aside from the new intro (which, by the way, is seriously badass).

Kyle thinks Cartman is stupid to be worried about the NSA. Cartman keeps trying to protest against the NSA and makes the guys follow him on twitter. Cartman announces a rally against the NSA. The boys talk about going on the phone and then the next day all their parents are being audited by the IRS.

Now Kyle sees maybe Cartman was right and that kills kyle inside a little.

Well Cartman didn't help his own cause, broadcasting his phone calls as if he were a radio DJ. What NSA agent wouldn't be aware of this if he were around Cartman? Cartman worrying over the NSA spying on him without realizing his own part in making it possible.